The Easel

1st April 2025

Celia Paul faces the ghosts of her past

Matthew Spurling | Apollo | 28th April 2025

It took an effort for Paul to make Lucien Freud part of her story, rather than she being part of his. It’s a point of departure for several reviews of her new show that focuses on portraits. Paul denies being a portraitist – “if I’m anything, I have always been an autobiographer”. Presumably what she means is that her viewpoint when painting is not representational but emotional. Perhaps that means the portraits in this show are really about memory – “what you have once been close to stays with you.”.

Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo at the Royal Academy review : ‘unnerving’

Melanie McDonough | The Standard | 20th April 2025

When Victor Hugo wasn’t writing Les Misérables etc, he sketched, drew or doodled. Most critics like his work, even though much of it “is very odd indeed”. There are humanoid mushrooms, “weirdly modern abstractions”, imaginary castles and more. Should these “competent” works be judged as if done by a “serious” artist? Perhaps not, because we are looking for other reasons, hoping for other insights. We look to see Victor Hugo, a great writer. And what do we find? Suggests one writer, “what an artist, what a soul”.

25th March 2025

Edvard Munch Portraits review – smug, creepy and weird, but where’s the drama?

Adrian Searle | The Guardian | 12th March 2025

Think Munch, think Nordic angst? Pretty much, judging by a show of his portraits in London. Munch painted his wide circle of friends – artists, musicians, the well-to-do. They are an odd lot, “the smug, the arrogant, the faintly creepy”, captured with psychological acuity, sometimes in hallucinatory colour.  Some complain about the weak selection of works in this show. Why not include, asks one, the “wild portrait of the mistress who shot him”. Some people, it seems, can’t get enough angst.

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